Andy Mac

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Will someone please meet Andy in town before the game. I'm feeling sorry for the lad

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Their website is cracker, too. They show highlights of the previous games complete with people screaming as either they or the opposition get near the goal Edit: Link added for anyone who is interested http://www.bromleyfc.co.uk/

You really didn't need to say that, did you?

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Liverpool have the best manager in Europe (bar none) O'Neill isn't fit to lace Rafa's boots.

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Wouldn't mind going to that. When is it? and can we get a "crew" together

Would love to hear Stuart Hall interview Rafa. That excerpt from Hall is brilliant. I love the way he refers to Anfield as the Colosseum - Hall is a great friend of LFC he was there and reported on the halcyon days and mourned when we've been through our "lower periods". He maybe dramatic and "ham things up" But I was brought up on this man in Granadaland/ R5 / etc. He'll do for me !

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Steve Finnan has had a very solid start to this season. I would imagine at this moment in time his name is one of the first on the teamsheet

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Is Benitez making a dog's dinner of Liverpool? Some valid points - some schite too --------------------------- The canine theme continues apace on Merseyside. Because if Everton's no-nonsense outfit of the mid-90s had to suffer being branded as The Dogs Of War, then in all fairness and interests of balance, Liverpool's present side should henceforth be referred to as The Dog's Dinner. What a terrible shambles the Rafalution is in danger of turning into. Is it knee-jerk to ask serious questions of Rafael Benitez, European Cup-winning Rafael Benitez, just because Liverpool performed so dismally at Old Trafford? So cluelessly at Bolton? So pathetically at Everton? And - forget the hard-luck stories, please - so helplessly out of their depth at Chelsea? Well, possibly. That's only two months' worth of dreadful form after all, and anyone can suffer that. Just ask Arsene Wenger this time last year. But at least there was some sense then that Arsenal were making long-term progress: by the end of Benitez's third season, Liverpool Football Club will have edged no closer to ending their increasingly Manchester Unitedesque period in the league wilderness than they were under Souness, Evans or Houller. In neither style nor substance. Ah, poor Ged Houller. Cup successes beyond supporters' wildest dreams, yet when it came to the competition Bill Shankly referred to as the club's "bread and butter", he couldn't push on. His defensive style was enough to land a brilliant European trophy - and with the likes of Roma and Barcelona in the way, the 2001 Uefa Cup was as impressive an achievement for the club as the 2005 Champions League - but his subsequent attempts to reach the Premiership summit playing a more proactive attacking game ended in laughable gaffe-strewn disaster. This reminding you of anyone? Like Ged, Rafa has shone in the cups. You can't knock a Champions League and an FA Cup in two seasons, but let's keep things in perspective. Here's Clichéd-but-Irrefutable Truth Of Football No4,873: a well-drilled defence and a soupcon of luck can take you a long way in knockout competitions, but winning league titles is a different proposition altogether. Imagine those two pots never happened - consider Gerrard's thriker against Olympiakos, Gudjohnsen's miss in the Anfield semi-final or Lionel Scaloni's hacked clearance at the Millennium Stadium, and that thin line between success and failure snaps sharply into focus. Imagine that, and Liverpool's lack of Premiership progression under Benitez is suddenly seen in stark relief: they're in the bottom half of the table after a quarter of the season, for goodness sake. But what's worse, they're a knotted mess. Not one component of the team is functioning correctly. Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso look lost, the former detailed with different roles each week, the latter often asked to switch tack from playmaker to covering midfielder in the same game. The wingers - as much as Jermaine Pennant, Luis Garcia and Mark Gonzalez deserve to be described as such (especially if you compare them to Cristiano Ronaldo or Ryan Giggs) - meander aimlessly inside and without intent. Up front, where goals are at a premium, Dirk Kuyt and Peter Crouch are frequently forced on futile lone patrol. (At Old Trafford, the busy Dutchman spent half the time chasing balls on the right wing from where he'd look up to cross, only to realise that the team's one penalty-box predator was chasing balls on the right wing and looking up to cross. Thus he'd find himself forced to turn tail and pass backwards.) Meanwhile a once well-drilled back line marshalled by Pepe the Performing Ape has lost all shape and unity, randomly sliding up and down the pitch like a graphic equaliser on a cheap hi-fi. In comparison with dependable Chelsea, cinematic Arsenal and resurgent Manchester United, Liverpool are a total embarrassment. Actually, in comparison with Aston Villa, Everton, Bolton, Reading and Portsmouth, Liverpool are a total embarrassment. Benitez can't hide behind the European Cup forever - like Ged tried with his "five" trophies in a season shtick and that six-year "five-year plan" - and with Liverpool regressing at frightening pace, it's time he proved he can transfer his La Liga pedigree to England. Or was that "lucky manager" tag he was saddled with in Spain less unfair than it seemed at the time? The crunch is coming. Does Benitez dump the progressive experiment (such as it is), sideline the wingers and go back to 2005's sturdy grind-em-out philosophy? If so, he ain't winning the league any time soon. Does he keep on with the current mix-and-match approach, in the hope that things will come good in "two months" (the Houllieresque wait-and-see timespan he demanded after the abject capitulation at the Reebok)? Well, good luck with that. Or does he give in to the ridiculous clamour to play Steven Gerrard in central midfield - where the captain simply never delivers - in which case Rafa should admit he's taken Liverpool as far as he can possibly take them, and step aside gracefully before everyone's reputation becomes irreversibly tarnished? An end to the policy of constant rotation could be the simple answer; rotating the systems, that is. If Benitez sticks - in every league match - to the simple attacking 4-4-2 framework he often employs at Anfield, and quits trying to be too clever for his own good away from home, he can scribble whichever bloody players he likes in the regular spaces on each teamsheet. At least everyone might remember what they're supposed to be doing that way. And the strikers might have someone to pass to. Telling his full-backs to get up and down a bit more might help too, but whatever he decides, something has to change. And quick. Because if there's not a notable improvement in Liverpool's consistency over the next three to four months, serious questions about Benitez's suitability for the task in hand should be legitimately asked. Turgid, clever-clever tactics will only get you so far and no further - as the Houllier era proved. It's the league Liverpool really want. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? Say it ain't so, Rafa.